Well, maybe I'm the only one bothered by this $10 thing, but it still bothers me. Here's why:

IF the deal goes through, each participant is out $100, but for that $100 he got a CHANCE to win a business. Ya pays your money and takes your chances, that's cool.

But IF the deal does not go through, each participant has paid $10 for what? For eligibility to have gotten in the contest IF it had proceeded. With no contest, there was never any actual opportunity to gain anything.

Let's say 1,000 entries are received, coming in at a fairly steady pace over the 6 1/2 month period mentioned. That's $100,000 at the disposal of the owners, for an average of a little over 3 months. At a rate of 6% per annum, they stand to make $1,500 just on interest. And by keeping $10 from each entry, THEY MAKE $10,000 FOR NOT HAVING A CONTEST!

Now, we're told this business has a TOTAL worth of $100,000 to $150,00 (and I assume that really means total--assets, liabilities, goodwill, etc.). But the deal is off unless they get 2,000 entries, grossing at least $200,000 (sweet deal there). I have serious doubts they will get that many. By having what strikes me as a greedily high number of minimum entries required, they ensure that either they make a killing on the "sale", getting significantly more than they could on the open market, or they make thousands of dollars for offering, in effect, nothing. And the more artificially high that minimum number is, the more likely that they will never get enough entries to actually have a contest. I don't know these folks from Adam, and make no judgments as to their character, but can you think up a better scam? Set up a deal that garners $10 each from hundreds or thousands of folks in such a way that you're likely to have no commitment to do anything more than mail them a check for the unused 90% of their "entry" fee for a contest that doesn't happen?

No contest also means no judges, no contracts and lawyers, etc. The only significant expense could be advertising, depending upon how vigorously (and expensively) they promote it. While it might be reasonable for them to expect to cover promotional expenses, there's still the concern that the participants get nothing more than "the right to be allowed to enter", which would certainly be moot (and valueless) if there's no contest.

My view is largely colored by my impression that these types of deals generally fall through due to lack of enough entries. If the minimum were 1,000, or maybe even up to 1,500 @ $100 for this business, it wouldn't seem so bad. But how many people are there who will hear about this, and want to run their own business, in Boulder, dealing in musical instruments, etc., and are willing to gamble $100 on the strength of their essay? Not enough is my guess.

Now the vision of a Mudcast West HQ sounds cool, but keep in mind it still means running a business and living in Boulder. How many Mudcatters in Boulder? How many want to move there? How many have the skills to run a business of this size? Okay, just get 1,990 more entries and write a killer essay, and we got it.

Your friendly neighborhood curmudgeon and pessimist,
Gary T.